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Plummer, Karen --- "Toomelah: An Interview with Murray Chapman from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission" [1988] AboriginalLawB 58; (1988) 1(35) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 8


Toomelah:

An Interview with Murray Chapman from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission

by Karen Plummer

How has the government responded to recommendations made by the Human Rights Commission in the Toomelah Report?

At a local government level Moree Plains Shire Council (MPSC) has set up a Social Plan Committee, that includes representatives of various federal Aboriginal affairs bodies. At a state level, apart from the commitment to continue the Homes on Aboriginal Land program, Nick Greiner has been to Toomelah. That's not so much a fulfillment of the recommendations as a bit of PR but at least it serves to show the Premier that these conditions do exist. I understand it was his first visit to a remote Aboriginal community., For that reason alone it may have been a valuable exercise, particularly in the context of the NSW government's intended repeal of the NSW land rights legislation.

At the time that the Report came out, I believe the MPSC was denying access to services on the grounds that Toomelah was a private settlement. Is this continuing?

They still maintain that they are not only not obliged to provide services but are prohibited by the NSW Local Government Act from doing so. We didn't agree with their interpretation of the Local Government Act - that they are not obliged to provide services and that Aboriginal Affairs are a commonwealth responsibility; I think their expression was that they had no responsibility to provide services 'beyond the front gate'.

Have Aboriginal people generally affected by the. MPSC benefited from the Inquiry?

There was a visit by people from NSW local government to MPSC last week to discuss Aboriginal employment by the council. When I was with the Anti-Discrimination Board (ADB) a couple of years ago I went up there. There wasn't a single Aboriginal person employed permanently on the indoors staff of the council, and only a handful on the outdoor staff. This is in a town where the Aboriginal population is in the thousands. One of the services the local government ought to provide to Aboriginal people is employment. In country towns local Shires are major employers. They were criticised by the ADB years ago for not doing that. It looks as though they are finally picking up the swag and trying to do something about it.

Have initiatives been taken to coordinate the state and federal policies on Aboriginal Affairs?

Greiner said there were 'new directions for Aboriginal Affairs". My personal view is that if the state government persists with this policy of "mainstreaming' while the Commonwealth government continues with the policy of what they call 'self-determination', its hard to see how they will co-ordinate their approach.

What do you see as the relationship between policies and practices regarding self-determination?

Self-determination is a mixed bag. If it was applied as Aboriginal people would like to see it applied there would be no problems. One of the major stumbling blocks in Aboriginal affairs has been that the bureaucrats have called self-management "self-determination'. Another problem is that not a lot of people are aware of the exact content of self-determination. There are people in federal government affairs that would prefer that the expression self-determination not be used in Aboriginal affairs because it creates complications for them internationally.

Do you mean fears of a nation state?

Yes, something like that. When you're discussing self-determination you automatically bring up questions of sovereignty. When you are talking about sovereignty it opens up a whole bag of questions that some folks would prefer not be addressed.

On a community level how does racism affect the people of Toomelah?

Well the evidence that the Inquiry heard from say the Goondiwindi High School was pretty horrendous. You've got to ask what sort of a chance in life kids have got when they go to a racist school on something people call a 'vegemite bus'. They were segregated into white rows and black rows. They had separate blackboards. When we were up there you'd always hear anecdotal evidence of less favourable service. For example, refusal of service in pubs or difficulty in finding rental accommodation. It's part and parcel of everyday life in north-west NSW. It distresses me that lots of Aboriginal people accept that, not as something they have to put up with, but as something they can't do a lot about. For that reason they concentrate on the bigger picture - in the hope of overcoming structural discrimination or structural racism so that it will have a trickle-down effect.

What has happened with setting up schools that are more accessible than Goondiwindi High School?

Well, of course the school at Toomelah that wasestablished by the NSW Education Department, the state primary school has been a raging success since it was set up in '86. The staff there are sensitive, they are aware of the particular needs of Aboriginal children they have an Aboriginal studies policy in place, the curriculum is culturally appropriate. The problem arose when the kids had to go across the border to the high school where none of that supportive atmosphere existed. What's happened now is that the NSW Department of Education has started working on a high school at Boggabilla. Already kids from Toomelah are attending that high school. There is an adult education facility tied in with that high school. There have been measurable achievements since the Inquiry as far as education is concerned as well as in housing and other areas.

I understand that Toomelah has been zoned rural. How does this affect Toomelah residents?

These sort of administrative decisions (they're not even political or policy decisions) are taken for perverse policy reasons sometimes. They have a profound effect on Aboriginal communities. If people have secure title to the land they'd be entitled (at least nominally) to the provision of services by the relevant authorities.

Since the Report came out have the people of Toomelah been granted access to sacred sites?

Not as far as we are aware. Boobera Lagoon is the most significant site, and to the extent that you can call access along with all the skiers and along with all the mums and dads picnics on the weekend "access", they have access. Another significant site that we took the Inquiry to was the cemetery in Old Toomelah. As far as I'm aware, the people from Toomelah who originally came from Old Toomelah Mission still don't have access to that. It's a declared site but it's an island in the middle of this great pastoral property.

And that's privately owned?

Yes, so far the owners have refused access to the cemetery, although for the occasion of the Inquiry's visit they made an exception. Aboriginal people can't get title to land because there are no services there and they can't get the services because they don't have secure title to land. It's a Catch 22 situation.

So there's no way that pressure can be put on those people to grant access?

We're not aware of any developments about that yet. That will come up at the review no doubt. The National Parks and Wildlife Service is doing management plans for Boobera Lagoon, but they ran across a couple of stumbling blocks with the Goondiwindi Aquatic Club; people who use the lagoon for recreational purposes and run their little jet boats up and down to the stress of the fishes and birds.

How has the Toomelah Report effected other Aboriginal communities?

This year we are going to do a general overview of the provision of water to Aboriginal communities. We're going to look in detail at 2 or 3 Aboriginal communities in each of the States and Territories, with different problems in the supply of water. For example, in the Northern Territory there is a problem with Aboriginal people not getting access to water in pastoral excisions because other services aren't there and because they haven't got a secure title to the land they live on. It's a matter of who's going to put on the first service, the others will follow. So that's the sort of flow-on that Toomelah is going to have. Toomelah wasn't the start and finish of this Commission's involvement with Aboriginal issues. The problems that exist in Toomelah are the problems that are experienced by Aboriginal communities all over the place. There is this lip-service to self-determination but anyone who has seen evidence that was given at Toomelah would know that the community had no chance of self-determining. What we've tried to. do is project Toomelah as a model of how things can be done and how they can go wrong and why they go wrong. For that reason we have contractors making a video of Toomelah and the sorts of processes people have gone through since the Inquiry in order to get access to essential services. That's going to be distributed through the land council network in NSW and through other Aboriginal community organisations elsewhere. Also the president of the Commission, Justice Einfeld made a commitment to return to Toomelah within 6 months. That will take it up to the end of 1988, to review progress, so we'll have to check it out then.


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